


In Memorium

by queen_scribbles



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 12:45:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17022876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_scribbles/pseuds/queen_scribbles
Summary: The poem that they quote is ‘In Memoriam A.H.H’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I’d already been thinking about titling this ‘In Memoriam’ just cuz of the nature of the fic, and then I found that poem in my search for one to include and it was too perfect to pass up. Poetry’s very important to Quinn(part of why  he fell for Ash), so I wanted to include it at one of his more vulnerable moments.





	In Memorium

 

Growing up in a farming colony, followed by spending a couple years bouncing solo through the Alliance foster system had left Quinn with something of an independent streak. Teamwork in combat was one thing, but off-duty he found it very hard to ask for help.  
  
Which is why Ashley nearly fell out of her chair when he started a conversation with "Hey, Ash, can you do me a favor?"  
  
"Sure, but I feel like I should be making a vid of this conversation," she teased, leaning forward to give him her full attention. "What do you need, babe?"

"I have something I need to do where moral support would be appreciated," Quinn said vaguely. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to come with me and not ask any questions 'til we get there?"  
  
"This isn't illegal, is it?" She raised an eyebrow.  
  
"No, nothing like that," he promised. "It's just.... You'll see."  
  
Something told her that whatever this favor was, it was serious, so she simply asked, "When would we be leaving on this mystery trip?"  
  
"Tomorrow, if that works for you."  
  
"Way to give a girl notice, Skipper," Ashley chided gently, pushing to her feet. "Guess I should go pack." 

She trailed one hand over his shoulder as she walked past, and Quinn grasped it, looked up at her gratefully. "Thanks, hon."  
  
"Anything for my captain," she teased lightly, squeezing his hand. "I really should go pack."  
  
Quinn nodded and let go. "It'll be temperate where we're going, and we'll only be there a day or two."  
  
"It's like you read my mind," Ashley couldn't resist commenting as she shot him one last smile and left the room to go pack accordingly.  
  
>>O>>O>>O>>  
  
Their trip to... wherever they were going went smoothly. Quinn was quiet most of the trip, and more than once Ashley caught him browsing through pictures on his omnitool, wistful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  
  
When they entered the Attican Traverse, she suspected. When they landed on Mindoir, she knew. So she didn't push when Quinn took his time with the landing procedures, when he wanted to double-check things _twice_ , when he took far longer than necessary changing into civilian clothes.  
  
He finally looked at her as they prepared to disembark. "I guess you've put it together by now?"  
  
Ashley nodded, linking her arm through his and giving his hand a supportive squeeze. "Everything but the significance of the date." The slaver raid that orphaned him had been in the spring, still several months off.  
  
Quinn swallowed hard, grip tightening on the stuffed animal he held. "My- Mika's birthday." Even just those two words came out rough, and when he fell silent, Ashley didn't push.  
  
This had to be so hard for him. The destroyed section of the colony had been abandoned, but Mindoir was a resource-rich world, so the Alliance had simply recolonized elsewhere, with better security. It had to be jarring to carry memories of a smoking ruin and be greeted by a bustling city. She definitely understood why he'd wanted her help.  
  
Quinn stayed silent all the way through the city. Ashley asked for directions, Ashley handled the shuttle rental, Ashley thanked the security guard for his concern when he warned them to stay in colonized areas. They didn't stay in colonized areas. Soon as they were out of the guard's line of sight, Quinn punched a set of coordinates into the shuttle guidance system. From memory.  
  
"You still have it _memorized_?" Ashley muttered, not sure whether to be impressed or concerned.  
  
Quinn just shrugged and nodded. "We were supposed to know it by heart. In case we ever got lost." He absently stroked to stuffed horse, fingers sliding through the soft plush coat. "I... don't know if I  can do this, Ash."  
  
She slowed the shuttle to a halt and let it idle while she looked at him. "Then we don't have to. If all this is gonna do is hurt you and stir up ghosts, then I can turn this shuttle right around and we'll go back. Find some other planet and steal a mini-vacation. We only have it's something _you want_ to do, Skipper." She reached over and covered his hand with hers. God, it killed her to see him hurting."So, which way?"  
  
Quinn was silent for a long, heart-breaking minute before he met her eyes and said quietly, "Forward."  
  
"You sure?"  
  
He nodded. "I'm sure. This is something I want to... _need_ to do, Chief."  
  
Neither of them spoke until the shuttle beeped an alert that they had reached their destination.  
  
"She'd be your age," Quinn commented as they climbed from the shuttle.  
  
"Huh?”  
  
"Mika. If she were still... She'd be the same age as you."  
  
Ashley couldn't think of a reply beyond, "Oh". She remembered hearing about the batarian slavers razing and kidnapping from the Mindoir colony. She'd been eleven.  
  
"I think you two would've gotten along," he said absently, staring at the scorched earth that must have held a home. _His_ home. "She was all about standing up to bullies and protecting people and loved to read." He actually chuckled, a small and rueful sound in the vastness that surrounded them. "She wanted to go back to Earth and be a cowboy when she grew up. No matter how many times Zane and I tried to tell her there weren't really cowboys; they only exist in old vids and books, she was _adamant_ she was going to be a cowboy. We stopped trying when she was nine."  
  
"Zane was your brother?" Ashley said softly. He didn't talk about his family much, always steering conversations back toward her still-living siblings.  
  
Quinn nodded. "Twin brother, actually. Older by five minutes and never, _ever_ let me forget it. Slavers hit the day before we turned sixteen. We spent our birthday hiding in the bedroom with Mika, trying to keep her quiet , trying to keep her from looking for Mom and Dad. They were already dead and we knew it." He reached a spot on the burnt shadow and knelt, setting the stuffed horse against a rock. "But we were teenagers. We fell asleep. She got out. Zane went after her. Told me, made me swear I wouldn't move for anything short of them burning down the house." His voice shifted to a monotone, eyes staring at nothing. Ashley slipped her hand into his and let him squeeze as he waded through the memories. "They never came back. And the slavers _did_ torch the house. I went bolting out, coughing and crying. Tripped over... something, looked to see what it was, wished I hadn't. It..." He squeezed her hand hard, shook his head. "Let's just say I'm positive my family's dead. There are friends who probably got taken by the slavers, like Talitha, but I _know_ my family died. So I started running and didn't stop 'til I hit that Alliance patrol. I don't even know if the batarians cased me or anything. I just ran."  
  
"Skipper..." She found herself at a loss for words. "So why now?"  
  
Quinn looked over at her, eyes bright and cheeks damp. "Mika's birthday is harder, but I figured with the right help I could maybe be strong enough to let go of one of my ghosts." He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, gratitude having replaced the stress of earlier. "I wasn't wrong."  
  
Ashley felt her own eyes well up at the implication. "Oh, Skipper, you gotta quit doin' this."  
  
"Doing what?"  
  
"Saying things that make me want to kiss you. Particularly at wildly inappropriate times."  
  
"Can't get enough of me, huh?" His voice was gruff and shaky, but the levity was unmistakably there.  
  
"Nope." She leaned over and kissed his cheek.  
  
Quinn fell silent again for a while. Ash sat with him patiently, quietly, even as the cool of the ground sank through her clothes. Finally he took a deep breath and ran one hand over the stuffed pony's mane. The words began as a whisper, barely audible. “’ _I  hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most;-”_

“' _Tis better to have loved and lost_ ,’” Ashley joined in, fingers lace between his, “’ _Than never to have loved at all._ ’”  
  
They both fell silent again, and Ashley couldn't help but feel there was a finality to this visit beyond the fact Quinn was remembering his dead sister. But she didn't say anything as Quinn stood, tugged her to her feet, and headed back to the shuttle. She didn't say anything as the engines whined to life and the ride back to the new colony began.  
  
It wasn't until after they'd reached the settlement and settled with the rental agency that Quinn said, "I wasn't... wasn't entirely honest in explaining why we came _now_."  
  
"Skipper, you don't have to-" Ashley began.  
  
"But I want to," Quinn interrupted. "It _is_ Mika's birthday, and that's why I wanted to come _today_. But this trip is different. I've come before on birthdays, my parents' anniversary, the first couple anniversaries of the attack- 'til I realized that was a lousy way to spend _my_ birthday and stopped. But this... this is my last visit.  Hence the letting go of my ghosts, or trying to."  
  
"How d'you know it's your last visit?" Ashley frowned.  
  
"Because the new colony needs to expand and the best direction to go is over the old colony. I won't be able to visit that spot any more. There'll be a house or an office or a business on top of it."  
  
"Can't you say something?" She linked her fingers between his and squeezed his hand. "I mean, you just saved the whole damn galaxy, I would think that carried some weight."  
  
"It does," he sighed, smiling slightly at her joking tone. "Just not enough to convince them to expand somewhere else. I've made every argument from it being in poor taste to pointing out the benefits to other parts of the planet. No dice."  
  
"Couldn't they just give you that plot of land? Not build anything there so you can keep this up? It obviously means a lot to you."  
  
Quinn shook his head. "I couldn't do it. It'd be too different. I can come now because it's quiet. Lonely. Peaceful." He squeezed her hand back. "It'd feel really weird having a moment of silence for my family less then ten yards from city bustle."  
  
"Good point," Ashley conceded as they entered the spaceport. "I can see how that would make it difficult."  
  
"It's sweet that you thought of something." He kissed the top of her head. "But it's probably for the best that I let this go. Move on with my life and all that. Future's lookin' pretty rosy right now..."  
  
"Oh, yeah?" Ashley paused, tugged him out of the flow of foot traffic to kiss him properly. "That so, hero man?"  
  
"That's so, hero lady," Quinn nodded and kissed her again. "It's time to look forward rather than behind me."  
  
"Good plan," she nodded, settling his arm around her shoulders as they resumed they path toward the ship.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that they quote is ‘In Memoriam A.H.H’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I’d already been thinking about titling this ‘In Memoriam’ just cuz of the nature of the fic, and then I found that poem in my search for one to include and it was too perfect to pass up. Poetry’s very important to Quinn(part of why he fell for Ash), so I wanted to include it at one of his more vulnerable moments.


End file.
